Luke Traynor looks at the events which led to football’s Heysel disaster, 25 years on

ON MAY 29, 1985, Liverpool and Juventus met in the European Cup Final.

The Anfield club were the reigning champions, having beaten Roma on penalties at the Stadio Olimpico in the capital, the previous year.

In 1984, some Liverpool fans had come under attack from Italian fans, and again they were facing Italian opposition.

In the hours leading up to the kick-off at the Heysel stadium, in Brussels, many observers commented on the convivial atmosphere in the bars and around the ground.

John Welsh, 27, from Dingle, who was soon to be lauded a hero for saving the lives of seven Juventus supporters, travelled to Belgium with six friends via a boat to France.

Arriving in Brussels on the day of the final, the 52-year-old said: “I remember having a laugh with the Juve fans in the town centre, going to different bars, singing songs. Everything seemed fine.”

That view was echoed by Bill Sergeant, a Merseyside Police officer and Liverpool FC fan, working as a steward on a coach filled with LFC fans.

He recalled: “I was 46, and took my 18-year-old son with me, along with another serving officer and his son.

“We went on coaches from Garston. We stayed over the border in Holland for one night, and travelled into Belgium the next day.

“The day of the match was brilliant, sunny, people enjoying themselves, a lot of people drinking.

“We were told bars near the ground would be closed but that wasn’t implemented.”

Close to the ground, before kick-off, the first signs of trouble emerged, as Liverpool fans were seen being taken out with stab wounds.

It was here where major problems were apparent – the ageing, crumbling Heysel stadium, an inefficient police force and a failure to deal with counterfeit tickets.

Mr Welsh said: “Coppers just had their hands in the air, they were letting supporters go wherever they wanted to go.

“As we walked in, people were saying, ‘Be careful when you go in!’

“We had tickets for Section Z, the neutral zone where a lot of Italian fans were. That was where the chaos happened.

“We went to get a match programme and as we were walking onto the terrace I heard a ‘bang’, the crack of a wall collapsing.

“Almost as I walked in, the wall came down. Bricks basically fell on me, leaving my arm all cut.

“I jumped back and escaped onto the pitch.”

Shortly before that, Liverpool FC chief executive Peter Robinson had been surveying the terraces at one end of Heysel with a sense of trepidation.

LFC fans had been allocated the standing area behind one of the goals, with sections X and Y filled with the Anfield faithful, with the adjoining Section Z, on the end, being a supposedly neutral zone.

But, due to poor ticketing arrangements, this area was almost entirely populated by Juventus fans, leading to a potentially explosive stand-off between rival fans situated just yards away from each other.

To make matters worse, the two zones were separated by a flimsy “chicken-wire” fence, and the promise of a police officer on every step had not materialised. Mr Robinson said: “It was 6.45pm and I stayed out there and along came Gunther Scheider, UEFA’s official observer.

“I drew his attention to the two sets of supporters and the lack of any police on the dividing line.

“Something needed to be done, and done quickly. He couldn’t do anything and then he went on his way.

“It was out of hand, out of control.”